


A Talisman of Trust

by Selkie_de_Suzie



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Romance, Slight Tinge of Angst, Trust, butterfly bog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 18:01:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11926242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkie_de_Suzie/pseuds/Selkie_de_Suzie
Summary: A token from one Fateful Night returns, and the lesson of that evening comes home to two hearts...





	A Talisman of Trust

**Author's Note:**

> For Humanityinahandbag, in honor of a long ago Ask she sent me that Tumblr unfortunately lost. Darling, I hope this is a worthy tribute.

She finds it tucked away in one of the many safe secret places the shadows of his castle provide, the petals of it dry and fragile. They feel like parchment as she presses them to her lips and  _breathes._

The perfume is faint and fragile, but still sweet. The memory of that Fateful Night is strong enough to compensate, the scent spun softly into other things…

Things like moonlight staining anything and everything silvery and pure…

Things like claws carding tenderly through her hair as they tucked this bloom behind the curve of her ear…

Things like bright blue eyes lighting up a not-so-Dark Forest, banishing the shadows of the loneliness she had so fiercely forged walls from…

Her exhale is a shaky, shuddery thing as she opens her eyes and looks down upon what she holds, so small and yet  _so_  sacred. The last time she saw this, it was left in that web, forgotten and forsaken when faced by Roland’s army.  _How…?_

If her exhale was shaky, his inhale is fierce. 

She turns to him, the bloom still cradled in her clasped hands. His eyes are wide with wariness, and when he looks at her, her heart twists at how vulnerability makes their impossible blueness even more vivid as he meets her own golden gaze. 

She keeps her voice soft, barely enough to stir the precious petals she holds.  _“…you went back for it?”_

He looks away, his lean throat working with his swallow. “Ah…Ah felt Ah ought to.” He drops his gaze. “Ah could not forsake it. Not it, nor what it stands for.”

_Stands for?_

She goes to him, eyes wide and wondering and worried at the shame he suddenly seems to carry, how it makes the sharp line of his broad shoulders slump. “Forsake  _what?_ ”

He looks up at her, bravery making blue burn bright. “Trust.”  

Marianne stops as her heart does, her eyes going wider still.  _ **Oh.**_

He doesn’t look away from her as he continues, doesn’t retreat from the shame he so plainly unearths with his words. “It was so very  _easy_  fer me t’ believe Ah had been played once more. So very easy t’ put my guard up again. So very easy for me ta throw away what had been…” his lip twitches,  _“…blossoming.”_  

He drops his gaze down, his gnarled knuckles defined as he clutches his scepter. “So…after everythin’…Ah went back. And Ah looked, an’ Ah found it, an’…an’ Ah kept it. Keep it. Reclaimed it an’ swore Ah would honor it.” 

When he takes her hand, he holds it like he held the bloom––

_–– **their**  bloom, this token of their love, this talisman of their trust––_

––that Fateful Night. 

_How he holds my heart._  

He looks up at her, searing her with the seriousness of his gaze, burns her with the broken beauty of his heartfelt oath.  _ **“Ah’ll never not trust ye again, Tough Girl.”**_


End file.
